Recollections of an Unsuccessful Seaman. Dave Creamer

       ABOUT THE BOOK, THE AUTHOR, AND THE EDITOR

      THE BOOK

      The original manuscript is typed and liberally illustrated with detailed pen and ink drawings, exquisite watercolour sketches, black-and-white photographs, and the occasional picture postcard. The 235 numbered pages have been professionally bound in leather with the front cover inscribed in gold lettering with the title, Recollections of an Unsuccessful Seaman. For some obscure reason the author’s name, George Leonard (Len) Noake, is not included.

      The book was written in 1928–1929 whilst Len, who was terminally ill with tuberculosis, alternated between being nursed at his home in Southwick, Sussex, and the Swandean Isolation Hospital in Worthing, where he was to pass away at the age of 42 on 21 November 1929. It will never be known whether he had the satisfaction of seeing his completed work in book form, or whether it was bound after his death.

      Len’s wife, Mabel, was to outlive her husband by over 40 years until her death in 1970. Their daughter Anitra, the youngest of three children, discovered her father’s book in the loft of the family home in Lewes, Sussex, whilst sorting through her late mother’s possessions. Unbelievably, its existence had never been disclosed by Mabel who was, according to Anitra, a very private and unassuming lady who shared very few stories or memories of Len with their children.

      The book suffered from water damage in 2001 when Anitra’s home, also in Lewes, was flooded. The water-based paint used in many of the sketches ran, causing the colours to become smudged and blotched and the leather cover was irreparably damaged; over time, some pages have become faded and stained. The book was rebound in 2016 in a new leather cover. Thankfully, the manuscript itself remained legible, and some of the author’s skilled artistic efforts, carefully reproduced using modern scanning and colour enhancing techniques, are unaffected. Their survival ensures that Len’s work will be recognised as a true and unpretentious insight into life in the mercantile marine almost 90 years ago.

      THE AUTHOR

      George Leonard Noake, or Len, as his family and friends always called him, was born in Worcester on 25 September 1887. Little is known of his childhood; his father, Charles Noake, was a Lloyd’s Bank inspector, and records show the family to be living in Birmingham when Len commenced his pre-sea training on board the nautical training establishment HMS Conway in February 1903.

      On completion of his pre-sea training in July 1905, Len served an apprenticeship until 1908, but details, once again, are sparse. In the book he writes that he fell 40 feet from aloft during this period; on the basis of this statement, I have assumed that his early seagoing career was ‘under sail’, and that he fell from the rigging of a sailing vessel in which he was serving. He also mentions having visited South America prior to his voyage on a tanker in 1918. Since his detailed memoirs begin in 1908, and there is no record of him sailing to South America between 1908 and 1918, it can also be assumed that this earlier visit occurred during his three-year apprenticeship. The reason behind him choosing not to include this period in his recollections remains a frustrating mystery – it may have been that he hadn’t kept a log for his early voyages, or perhaps he chose to ignore, or forgot, his first years at sea. Likewise, he chooses not to share details with the reader of his working on a farm in Devon between 1913 and 1915, or his courtship with Mabel prior to their wartime marriage in November 1916.

      Len was clearly a lively but proud and responsible person, fond of a tipple, and blessed with a great self-belief that he would get by, though not necessarily prosper, in his chosen career. He was never out of work for too long despite the depression and hard times in the shipping industry. His financially disastrous ventures into farming and road haulage show him to have